Root Down, the popular restaurant in Denver’s Highland neighborhood, is hosting a four-course dinner Aug. 12 that showcases rose wines. The dinner will be held on the restaurant’s patio, which overlooks downtown Denver.

Chef-owner Jeff Osaka announced the room’s closing, which opened Nov. 4, 2008. During its nearly six-year run, the restaurant was routinely lauded on best-of lists, and this year Osaka was a semi-finalist for a James Beard Award for Best Chef Southwest.

“I love this neighborhood,” Osaka said in an email. “It’s been incredibly good to me. But while the restaurant has experienced tremendous growth, our restaurant has just 40 seats in the dining room and 10 seats at the bar, and we’ve gotten to the point where we’re just not large enough to accommodate as many guests as we’d like.”

Osaka said he intends to reopen Twelve elsewhere. But there’s no solid timeline, and Osaka is already occupied with his next venture: Osaka Ramen, a Japanese noodle shop slated to open this winter at 2611 Walnut St.

The space at 2233 Larimer St. won’t stay empty for long. Twelve will become Butcher’s Bistro, a “rustic American” restaurant and retail shop.

I have mixed feelings about Twelve’s closing. While it definitely deserves a larger space, I will definitely miss its food during the coming months and hope that Osaka follows through on his desire to reopen Twelve in another location. (Uptown neighborhood, anyone? What a terrific tandem it would make with such restaurants as Beast + Bottle, Humboldt or Argyll.)

Tucker Shaw, my predecessor as restaurant critic at The Denver Post — he’s now executive editor at Cooks Country — turned me on to Twelve. He was a big fan of its commitment to seasonal ingredients and rotating monthly menu, which is where the restaurant’s name is derived.

“Dishes here are not the city’s cheapest (entrees in the mid-to-upper $20s), but they are replete with innovation and elan, and so they are among the city’s best values,” Shaw wrote. “No other restaurant in town is assembling a plate as post-nouveau-elegant as January’s duck entree, a four-square presentation of a perfectly roasted breast, a hash of quinoa and confit, a delicate strip of bacon over pearl onions, and an expertly formed quenelle of squash. Fussy, yes, but in every good way; nothing on this precisely designed plate was overdone.”

Osaka, who is closing the restaurant on his 50th birthday, has estimated that in his six years of operation, he has created 70 menus and an astonishing 1,000 different dishes.

That’s a lot of creativity. Let’s hope we get to see it again at a resurrected Twelve.

Gluten is a protein found in wheat, rye and barley which is found in a lot in baked goods, like bread. (Jenny Sparks, Loveland Reporter Herald file photo)

After years of different diagnoses, treatments and questions, my daily headaches finally went away. What ended the head and neck pain was a diet change: I stopped eating gluten.

In the fall of 2011, my freshman year of college at Colorado State University, I started to notice I got a headache almost every day. Caffeine or no caffeine, lots of sleep or not enough sleep, drinking water or not, I always got headaches. They would start at the top of my neck at the base of my head, and depending on the severity, would move over the top of my head.

I had recently hit my head snowboarding, so I started by seeing a concussion specialist. Massages, nerve relaxing pills and following all the rules did not help. I gave up for a while after that, but tried to avoid things like staring at a computer screen for too long or florescent lights because they seemed to be triggers.

I started seeing a physical therapist in the fall of 2013 for an ankle injury and asked her to try and fix my headaches as well. The multiple visits per week didn’t seem to help, and ended with getting an MRI which showed I had muscle spasms that caused my spinal cord in the neck to curve the wrong way.Read more…

Last night, the Denver City Council voted to allow city residents to sell fresh, homegrown produce from home. So if your neighbors have a thriving garden, and get the appropriate ($20) permit, you can buy some kale or heirloom tomatoes from right next door. Talk about local food — and a local economy.

That’s the idea behind the ordinance, which is an amendment to the Denver Zoning Code. To drive that point home, Mayor Michael Hancock and amendment sponsor Councilwoman Robin Kniech today will visit a Northwest Denver resident who plans to take advantage of the change. Amendment supporters are hopeful that it will most directly benefit low-income and possibly refugee communities; refugee communities in particular often have agrarian roots, and many in Denver are already active gardeners.

Elise Wiggins of Panzano has two first-rate Caesar salads on her restaurant menu. (Photo by Cyrus McCrimmon, The Denver Post)

I recently got an email from Lizbeth Scordo of Yahoo Food, that web giant’s site for all things culinary. She was polling various food types around the country about the best Caesar salads in their respective cities, including Chicago, San Francisco, New York City, Miami, Las Vegas, Los Angeles and Boston.

Scordo’s question to me: Who makes the top Caesar salad in Denver? It didn’t take me long to come up with the answer. I’ve always been a fan of the ones chef Elise Wiggins turns out at Panzano in the Hotel Monaco.

Here’s my reply in full:

“Hotel restaurants can sometimes be mediocre, but Panzano, located in the Hotel Monaco in downtown Denver, is consistently outstanding. The restaurant has long offered two Caesars: a traditional version with hearts of romaine, anchovies, garlic, Parmesan, croutons and crispy capers, plus their Caesar Griglia, which features grilled hearts of romaine. To their credit, if they’re not happy with that day’s shipment of romaine lettuce, they 86 the dish until a proper batch arrives. That’s attention to detail.” ($9.50)

Panzano is at 909 17th St. To check out what other restaurant critics and food writers had to say about their cities, check out this link at yahoo.com/food.

Cart-Driver opened July 9 at 25th and Larimer streets in Denver. (Photo courtesy Cart-Driver)

Cart-Driver restaurant launches July 9 in downtown Denver, the final tenant in the shipping container complex at 25th and Larimer streets that also houses Work & Class, Huckleberry Roasters and Topo Designs. Set your watches: The doors open at 4 p.m.

The restaurant is being opened by the same folks behind Basta, the popular Italian dining spot and pizzeria in Boulder. Chef Kelly Whitaker is in the kitchen, and the place will concentrate on wood-fired pizzas, crudo dishes and small plates. Prepared foods will also be sold for buyers to take home and finish in their own kitchens.

About the name: It’s based on the Southern Italian folklore figure the Carrettiera, or Cart-Driver, who delivered produce from farms to villages in ornate horse-drawn carts.

Cured, the Boulder cheese shop, is offering special cheese-and-beverage pairings during the Tour de France. (Photo by Brett Wilhelm)

You might not have the stamina for the Tour de France, but you can probably muster the wherewithal to get through the Cured de France, a cheese-and-beverage pairings offered by Cured, the popular cheese emporium in Boulder.

The three-year-old shop (1825 Pearl St., 720-389-8096) has assembled a package that celebrates each region the race passes through, from its first July 5-7 leg in England (Leeds, Harrogate, York, Sheffield, Cambridge), to the subsequent Gallic stages when the competition jumps the Channel into France. The world’s most prestigious bicycle race ends July 27 in Paris.

Why the Cured de France? Because Will Frischkorn, who co-owns the shop with his wife, Carol, is a former pro cyclist who has ridden in the Tour de France. Each package comes with a generous chunk of cheese and a paired drink. Price ranges from $25-$50, depending on the stage. The entire bundled “tour” costs $295, and you can arrange to have the packages delivered.

For the tour’s English leg, Cured is offering the legendary Montgomery cheddar and Robinson’s Old Tom Ale, a classic English ale with enough power to hold up to the sharp cheese.

“At the finale, we guiltily enjoy Champagne and wedge of Fougerus while the riders finally get off their bikes,” Frischkorn said in an email.

Information: 720-389-8096 or email answers@curedboulder.com. The shop’s website is at curedboulder.com.

Wood-fired pizzas will be on the menu soon, and the restaurant will use produce grown in the DBG’s Le Potager Garden, which is on site at 1007 York St.

No alcohol, but there are sodas, teas and housemade agua frescas.

Summer hours through Sept. 28: daily 10:30 a.m.–8:30 p.m. Last entry to the gardens is 8 p.m. On early closure days for special events, The Hive closes at 3 p.m. It reopens at 6 p.m. on nights during the DBG’s Summer Concert Series for pre-concert meals or food to go.

Fall hours will run daily 10:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m. until the weather turns.

A lagniappe for potential patrons: The monumental glass sculptures of Seattle artist Dale Chihuly are on exhibit through Nov. 30.

A salad of beets, arugula and goat cheese will be among the types of food Root Down will serve on its Raw Food Nights. (Photo courtesy Root Down.)

Root Down restaurant at 600 W. 33rd Ave. is hosting a Raw Food Night on the first Tuesday of every month, and the next one will be held July 1.

Some info: By definition, raw food has not been heated to more than 118 degrees. This leaves the natural enzymes and nutrients intact so their bio-availability to the human body is maxed out. With a menu created by Root Down chef Daniel Asher and Sarah Phillips, his sous chef, the dinners are a chance for Denver diners to walk on the raw side.

Tuesday July 24 is already sold out, but slots are still available through Saturday June 28. Charcoal is located at 43 W. 9th Ave. Dinner starts at 5 p.m.

While Charcoal participates in Denver Restaurant Week, the annual event whose second phase runs Aug. 23-29, the restaurant reasons that many regular customers avoid the crowds during that promo. So it launched its own version.

Reservations and more information: 303-545-0000 or 43wrestarant@gmail.com, or opentable.com.